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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
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Culture and early social-cognitive development.
Joscha Kärtner1, Nils Schuhmacher1, Marta Giner Torréns1
1Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Progress in Brain Research
|August 30, 2020
Summary
Culture significantly shapes early social-cognitive development in children. While core social-cognitive skills are universal, cultural practices create unique variations in children's development, influencing self-awareness, social learning, and prosocial behaviors.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Understanding early social-cognitive development is crucial for child psychology.
- Cross-cultural research highlights both universal patterns and cultural variations in development.
- Caregiver practices play a key role in shaping a child's social-cognitive trajectory.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the influence of culture on children's early social-cognitive development.
- To review cross-cultural research on similarities and differences in key developmental milestones.
- To explore how cultural values and practices modulate social cognition from infancy.
Main Methods:
- Systematic review of existing cross-cultural literature on early social cognition.
- Analysis of research on self-awareness, intentionality, social learning, and prosociality.
- Examination of caregiver practices and their impact on infant development.
Main Results:
- Evidence suggests universality in the emergence of social-cognitive skills, but with cultural variations ('universality without uniformity').
- Culture-specific accentuations in social cognition align with cultural values, beliefs, and practices.
- Caregivers' structuring of environments leads to culturally congruent patterns of attention, appraisal, and behavior.
Conclusions:
- Culture plays a significant role in modulating early social-cognitive development.
- Culturally informed social interactions shape infants' developing social cognition.
- Developmental systems perspective emphasizes the interplay between universal developmental processes and cultural contexts.
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